Killing Curse
by Virena Setiss
Summary: Nobody ever really survives the killing curse.
1. Prologue

Nobody ever really survives the killing curse.

It was the Hallowe'en of 1981. James and Lily had spent the night out with friends, leaving their child, Harry, in the hands of one Albus Wulfric Perival Brian Dumbledore, whom they trusted with their lives. Of course, Albus has planned it so. He knew what was to happen that night - he had seen it in Prospit's own clouds.  
What Albus wasn't prepared for was the news of a Death Eater raid, especially because the raid had taken place at the Leaky Cauldron - which happened to be where our ravenette's parents had gone to spend the night. He had, of course, rushed out of the quaint house in Godric's hollow, leaving our young protagonist unprotected as he apparated away.

_perfect_, thought the snake-like wizard as he watched the absentminded headmaster apparate away, without any sign of a child in tow. He slid the previously stolen cloak of invisibility off of himself, letting it fall to the ground as he stepped over the threshold and into the house, the fabric crumpling into a pile as it hit the floor. He walked right over it, leaving a large, muddy footprint on the cloth.

The downstairs of the house was completely empty of sound, sans an old clock slowly ticking away at the foot of the stairs. Upstairs, a light shone. The megalomanical sorcerer ascended the stairs quickly and quietly, and walked through the completely open door. The room was painted in bright colours, a cacophony of red skies and blue trees with magenta leaves, white animals strewn across the walls. The dark lord sneered at his surroundings, his eyes finally stopping when they spotted a small child standing alone in his crib, a stuffed owl equally as white as the animals on the walls clutched in his grasp. The child's raven locks spilled from his head in thick, messy bangs, framing his face and bringing attention to his bright, killing curse green eyes.

The next few events happened in quick succession, almost as if they were planned. They probably were.  
The wizard raised his wand in a graceful motion, a bolt of green matching the child's eyes shooting out of the tip.  
A small, sleeping grub was packed into an equally small, red ship and set on a direct course to a blue planet.  
A child died, the corpse dissapearing into paradox space.  
The sorcerer fell, equally dead.  
The parents died.  
The grub lands.  
An old man returns, distraught.

Moments later, an orphan is left under the eaves of a certain house located at number four, privet drive.


	2. Chapter 1

You had never left the basement before. After all, you had everything he needed down here - your pile, your ablution trap and load gaper, set in a small room off to the side, and your grubtop, sitting beside your pile. Every now and then, food would be pushed through a tattered flap at the bottom of the door, so you wouldn't starve. It was never anything substantial - bread crusts, hard cheese. all though sometimes, fresh fruit would spice up the pile, a rare treat. You more than often spent your time reading the numerous books that would find themselves tumbling haphazardly down the stairs. They always looked brand new and unharmed, other than whatever beating they would receive coming down the stairs.  
Of course, the grubtop wasn't given to you by the hiveowners of this place. In fact, you didn't have any idea HOW it got here, only that you awoke to it sitting beside your pile. It was connected to the internet, and you had discovered he could access two different 'sides' of the internet, with two different browsers. It had confused you greatly, at first, as to how it worked, but you later decided it was best not to pry into it and just 'go with it', as you learned the humans would say.

So instead, you had studied. Maths, English, Science, and both Alternian and Earth history. You learned all that you could in the time that you had. On the off chance that you ever had to leave the basement, you would need it. You had learned about how a lack of education meant you couldn't get an actual job, and that you needed a job to get 'money', and you needed money to get anywhere at all in life, which you thought was totally untrue - you had never even seen money, and you were perfectly fine.

None of it made any sense whatsoever for the longest time. You figured that if you had someone here to explain it to you, in person, so that you could ask all the questions you might want to, you would probably be more advanced. You were taking something called 'online courses'. You was in a 'class' of three other students, scattered about the country, all of them who were too far away from an actual 'school' (some place humans went to learn. Why would they do that when they could just have lessons from a computer?) to attend.

You had made friends with each of them, and had added them on a chat client called "pesterchum". Which, thinking of it, had been blinking orange for the past five minutes, trying to get your attention. Someone was pestering you.

- AstuteMentee [AM] begin pestering AmelioratedAnguidae [AA] at 04:56 -  
AM: Hey, have you finished exercise 8J yet?  
AM: Heeeeey...  
AM: Are you ignoring me?  
AM: Please don't ignore me. I swear, it's important this time!  
AA: Calm your shit, 'Mione.  
AA: I'm not ignoring you, I just sorta spaced out is all.  
AM: Ah, all right then. What did you get for 8J Q17?  
AA: You know I can't tell you.  
AA: Besides, I thought you'd consider me telling you as CHEATING.  
AA: I didn't know you were a cheater.  
AA: Cheaty cheaty cheater!  
AA: ;O!  
AM: Oh, shoosh, you. I'm not cheating - I was asked to help mark.  
AM: And yes, I can prove that!  
AA: Oh. Well, you can skip me, I've already handed it up. It's been marked.  
AM: Ah, all right, then. Oh, hey, does this English thing mean we finally get to see what you look like?  
AM: Because, honestly, I am INCREDIBLY curious.  
AM: The fact that you've refused to show yourself even when you're joining in on our skype chats (where we ALL have video chat on!) is quite suspicious. Besides that, you won't even tell us your name!  
AM: You're not some creepy old man, are you?  
AA: No! I'm not some creepy old man! I have a perfectly good reason for not showing myself.  
AA: A perfectly good reason that I will explain at a later date.  
AA: A much later date.  
AM: Oh, come ON. We'll be seeing each other next month, anyway, remember? For graduation. You can't get out of it, either! Otherwise you don't get your certificate of graduation and it would have all been a waste!  
AA: ...  
AA: I can't just have it emailed to me?  
AM: Nope. You have to actually show up.  
AA: Hermione! I can't! I can't go OUT there!  
AM: What do you mean, "Out there"?  
AA: ... Hermione, what if someone told you i'd lived in a basement my entire life, and that I'd never even SEEN outside, or another person, in my entire life?  
AM: Well, I'd think they were lying to me, of course.  
AA: And if I told you that?  
AM: Then I might believe you. If I had proof.  
AA: Hermione, I've spent my entire life in a basement, and I've never met another person or seen the outside world.  
AM: Ridiculous! Next you'll tell me you're some sort of alien with candy-corn horns, grey skin, claws, and incredibly pointy teeth!  
AA: ...  
AA: ...Actually...  
AM: WHAT.  
AM: I demand proof!  
AA: Uhmn... I'm not sure I can.  
AA: What kind of proof?  
AM: Send me a picture or something, I don't know!  
AA: Uh  
AA: Allright then.  
AA: Please don't react TOO badly.  
AM: Shut up and quit stalling!  
- AA Sent to AM -  
- AstuteMentee is now an idle chum! -  
AA: Uhh...  
AA: 'Mione?  
AA: Hello?  
AA: Uh... I'll come back later, then.  
- AmelioratedAnguidae [AA] has ceased pestering Astutementee [AM] at 05:12 -

Well, that was possibly the worst decision you'd ever made. Years and years of holding your identity close, not letting anybody knew - and you'd told.  
To be fair, they would have found out soon, anyway - You weren't going to NOT retrieve your certificate, you needed that. You supposed you'd need to get out of this basement at some point. Maybe now, in fact. You knew that Hermione lived in Surrey - You knew that you ALSO lived in Surrey, if only because you had managed to track down the exact location of your grubtop over some weird website. You also knew that Hermione lived not three hives down. You had seen the top view of your neighbourhood in a sort of road-maps looking thing - grey blocks on slightly lighter grey background representing individual hives. You had Googled it previously, when you had first considered leaving a few weeks ago. Hermione had been upset that you hadn't.

So, with a sense of trepidation, you rose from your pile. The stairs looked awfully daunting right now. Last time you had tried to leave, you hadn't made it up three steps before giving up and diving into your pile to hide yourself away for the rest of the night, and much of the next day. You had read about this - you thought you had something called 'Agoraphobia' in its incredibly advanced stages, and that was only the tip of the mental problems you had. Came with being a troll, you supposed.

You made it to the base of the stairs, and stared upwards. In the dark light, illuminated only by a single bulb, one that you had no idea how was still working, the stairs looked like a formidable foe - dark and slanted, not at all even, with spaces between each of them for anything to reach out and grab at your ankles. At the top was a dark brown rectangle - the door. You made your way up the steps slowly at first. Once you had passed the third, however, you RAN up the stairs with a new found sense of energy. You would be going OUTSIDE, soon! To see Hermione! You burst through the door - and into your worst nightmare.

It was CLEAN. incredibly so. the walls were almost BLEACHED white, and the smell of strong cleaning products permeated in the air. There was not a SINGLE pile anywhere to be found. What wasn't wall was clean pine wood or plastic. The hallway you were stood in was bare, but for three pictures in frames set on a small pine table. The first contained something akin to a large pink beach ball in a stripy one-piece. The second picture was no less terrifying - that same pink beachball, this time larger, with a sprout of hair shooting out the top of its head. This thing was a HUMAN? You hoped that this wasn't the norm! The third picture was of a trio - two large humans, one smaller than the other, but obviously younger, and another with graying hair and a similarly coloured moustache. stood next to them was a gaunt, skinny woman with too much neck. She reminded you of a giraffe.

With a shiver, you turned and strode towards what you thought was the front door. You reached a hand towards it, and lowered it onto the doorknob, twisting it slowly -  
and opened the door to a brisk, chilly early morning. it was still relatively dark out, the sun only slightly hinting at its arrival within the next hour or so. nobody was out this early. huh. you expected something more dramatic. You were slightly off put by the uniformity of the houses, though - each house looked exactly the same, and each car was the same model and brand, merely a different colour.  
this much uniformity had to have been planned, you thought as you stepped out, cautiously, onto the ground. It felt nothing like your carpeted floor on your bare feet - it was rough, yet slightly smooth in places from where it was worn at by people walking day in and day out.  
this place is very dull, was the thought running through your mind as you stepped out onto the footpath at the edge of the road. You were surprised you weren't freaking out - though you suppose it was probably because of the fact you were the only living being awake right now. If it were busier, you probably would have been hyperventilating.

Without further thought on the matter, you turned to your left, and walked three houses down. There was noise coming from this one, of course - that of pans banging and clanging around, perhaps in an effort to prepare a meal. you could see a single light on in the upstairs area, and you deduced that this was Hermione's room. You hesitated slightly. You may have made it out of your basement - even out of the hive, and onto the street - but were you really ready to meet your first human?...

You decided it couldn't wait. You were out now - you weren't going to miss out on the opportunity merely because you were afraid. So, with new found bravery (stupidity, you thought of it as - there really wasn't much of a difference between the two) you made your way up the two steps leading to the door, raised a gray, clawed fist, and knocked. The house was silent moments after you had - and then a crashing sound could be heard from the upstairs, and a yell of, "I'll get it!" came in Hermione's high, feminine voice. you were glad you wouldn't have to see her parents - you were not sure how they'd react to an alien. You were starting to freak out a little, now that you thought about it. You were about to meet a HUMAN-

The door opened suddenly, and you were confronted by a mass of disheveled, bushy hair that you knew to be the top of Hermione's head. wow, you thought, either i'm quite tall or Hermione's shorter than I thought. You looked down slightly. She was staring up, mouth agape.  
"Ohmigod - is it YOU?" she asked. you knew she would have probably substituted your name, if she had known it - but you hadn't told her your name. You weren't even sure if you had a name - the only one you could remember was "Harry Potter", and that was only half of a proper, 6/6 name. Not that any of your human friends had 6/6 names, really - they were all different sized names, and it confused the hell out of you sometimes.

You were drawn out of your musings by a forceful grip on your wrist, before you were dragged into the house, the door slamming shut behind you. Hermione released you the moment you were inside, and rushed to the window beside the door to see if anyone had seen the two of you. When she was sure there was nobody, she turned back to you. "Stay. Here." she said, a stern look in her eye. She took off down a door slightly to the left. You stood completely still. You could hear her voice in the other room.

"Mum... could you make a fourth breakfast, please? We have a guest... Uhm, yes, you can meet him - just don't freak out, please. He's... surprising, to say the least." was the first line to be heard, after which a long conversation took place. You ignored it for the most part, trying to tamper down the sudden fear you felt. You were in a HUMAN house, about to meet adult HUMANS, and maybe be dragged off by HUMANS to a HUMAN lab to be dissected by HUMANS who would HURT you because HUMANS ju-

Hermione, thankfully, came back at that moment, her mother in tow - who abruptly stopped the moment she saw you. She stared. and stared. and stared. You stared back, torn between staying, as Hermione had told you to, and running. You were just about to turn and run, when Hermione's mother broke out into a grin.  
"I knew it! I knew aliens were real! Oh, you simply MUST come in! Come, come - ah, you do speak English, yes?... Of course you do, you're Hermione's friend, right? Come on, into the kitchen, yes, sit down, dear - now, what do you want for breakfast? Do you eat everything? Oh, I bet, with THOSE teeth, you MUST be a carnivore - I'm not sure what meat we have, but I'll take a look-"

And so was your first meeting with a human.


End file.
